Dr. Malika Dryad
Lecturer Professor “A” – Faculty of Law – University of Algiers 1 – Algeria

Abstract:

The paper discussed the Criminal Court’s observations under amended Law 17-07 of the Algerian Code of Criminal Procedure. The main feature of this amendment is the exercise of rights, the establishment of the presumption of innocence, the granting of broad guarantees to the convict, and the universalization of two degrees in criminal matters, Article 160/2 of the Constitutional Amendment of 6 March 2016.
The reform of the criminal justice system, in particular, and the justice sector in general, is important. The Justice Reform Program of 20 October 1999 has attached great importance to strengthening the basic principles of justice in the protection of the rights of the sentenced person. The primary Criminal Court in its present form is subject to appeal before the felonies court of Appeal, in a manner similar to the penal provisions issued by other authorities in the case of delicts and offenses.
This study aims at examining the criminal court under the aforementioned law, considering it a great step and achievement in providing guarantees to the convicted person objectively, away from self-considerations. The study achieves this through adopting analytical and comparative methods between Algerian law and French law in terms of Egyptian law and Kuwaiti law.
On the other hand, it raises the question of whether this amendment achieves the principle of balancing the protection and consolidation of the rights of the sentenced person on the one hand, and the realization of the principles of fair criminal trial on the other, since the conciliation or failure to reconcile these two legal entities is one of the reasons behind the failure or success of the amendments made to this court particularly.
In order to address this problem, the study was divided into two sections. In the first section we discuss the amendments to the structural change of the Criminal Court, while in the second we discuss the amendments to the criminal trial.
The study will conclude with a set of results and suggestions, including the need to dispense with jurors and retain professional judges only in the formation of the Criminal Court at the level of primary and appellate levels, as the jury system as it is cannot adopt the principle of causation of criminal sentences.

Keywords: The principles of criminal procedure, constitutional legality, the principle of investigating the two levels, the criminal judge’s certainty, the methods of appealing criminal judgments.

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